


Devotionals for False Gods

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Before the Post-Timeskip Battle at Gronder Field (Fire Emblem), Church Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Faerghus Values Folks!, Falling In Love, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Grinding, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Mentioned Glenn Fraldarius, Pining, Rough Kissing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, can't believe that's a tag wow thank you, felix shows up but he's not worth a tag sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:28:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: When Sylvain stood staring long enough for early evening to properly count as night, he knew it was his turn to make Dimitri see sense as their leader. Ingrid had tried in the morning. Felix had waited until the afternoon.Ingrid had left. Felix had left. Sylvain would not.Four Saints, but what made Sylvain think he had anything to offer Dimitri neither Ingrid nor Felix could provide?
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	Devotionals for False Gods

It was one thing to see Ingrid fleeing the cathedral in tears.

It was another to see Felix.

"Shut up," Felix's hoarse voice snarled, shoving Sylvain and his pity away. "I'm fine. Nothing I didn't...shouldn't have expected from an _animal_."

"Hey, man," Sylvain said breezily, withdrawing his arms. "No worries. I get it. He’s annoying all of us—”

“No,” Felix spat. He swiped the tears from his eyes like they’d insulted him. They probably had, in a way. “We’re marching tomorrow. We can’t… _Annoyance_ has no place in battle. There is nothing but death, killing, and death. There’s no…reason for me to…”

If Felix were a decade younger, Sylvain would have hugged him. But they were both too old and too scarred to provide anything so temporary as _comfort_. So he watched the tears dry on Felix’s skin, watched the color return to his face, and let Felix leave after he said, “I can’t fathom what my old man thinks we can gain from having a creature like _that_ lead us to Gronder.”

Sylvain’s gaze followed his retreating form. Felix’s cloak fluttered gloomily in the waning glow of sunset as he marched too stiffly back into the monastery. Behind him, behind them both, loomed the ruined cathedral, its shattered windows gleaming and blinding in the steadily-darkening light. And inside, no doubt hunched over the fallen altar, praying to spirits only he believed in, lurked Dimitri. Their King. Their commander.

Their friend.

Sylvain rotated in a reluctant semi-circle to face the holy building, like he would turn and see Dimitri’s one-eyed glare and terrifying, unrestrained power only inches away. But no; nothing between him and the cathedral except that long stretch of bridge. Even as he watched, purple shadows crept over its arches as late afternoon became early evening.

When Sylvain stood staring long enough for early evening to properly count as night, he knew it was his turn to make Dimitri see sense as their leader. Ingrid had tried in the morning. Felix had waited until the afternoon, to let Dimitri calm himself—though Felix never would have admitted it.

And while the three of them had all grown up together, Sylvain had grown up _first_. Sylvain could do something neither Ingrid nor Felix could do: appeal to Dimitri as his friend. The ‘king’ part was secondary.

Sylvain needed to wait, too. Nighttime was for haunted monsters to stalk through, for hushed whispers to caress the dark.

* * *

Sylvain’s footsteps echoed on the cathedral flagstones like the tolls of church bells. He could have been anyone: a friendly face, a soldier on a patrol, an assassin without subtlety. Dimitri didn’t seem to care either way; his back was turned to the entrance while he mumbled to the fallen altar. The same position both Ingrid and Felix had left him in.

A spark of irritation flared to life in Sylvain’s gut. For all of Felix’s callous remarks, Sylvain admitted he had a point. How could the soldiers who _didn’t_ know their King keep morale high should their reckless commander fall mid-battle?

“You weren’t always like this,” Sylvain called as he approached. Dimitri didn’t even lift his head. “You were pretty good at ambush training back in school.”

For some reason, that got a response: Dimitri’s scoff scraped the high, hallowed walls. “If you’re not here to test how I deal with _ambushes_ , get out of my sight.”

“I’m not even in your sight, Your Highness. You haven’t looked at me.”

Silence. Dimitri’s back remained turned. Sylvain blew on his hands in the chilly cathedral and wished, for the first time, his gloves were thicker. Usually, he found Garreg Mach to be a comfortable temperature, especially when compared with back home. But now, with a simple, single conversation, his blood ran cooler than normal.

“It’s kind of beautiful like this, in a way,” Sylvain continued. He glanced around at each corner of the space, eyes lingering on the spots where he had the best and worst memories. His favorite pew not so far from the entrance he couldn’t sneak out during choir or services, not so close he’d risk being seen if he wanted to get a little self-relief during a boring sermon. The door to the Chapel of the Four Saints, where he’d spent four days in a row fucking four different girls on each of the four statues on a dare from a _fifth_ girl. The small corner where he’d cried for the very first time in years and years and years and years, encouraged by a gentle, compassionate, willing ear. “Seeing something so many people considered holy broken to pieces, but somehow, still standing.”

“Spare me your drivel and get to the point.”

Sylvain recoiled, stung. “Ouch. Here I was, trying to be all noble and proper. You really have changed, haven’t you? Still looking down on me.”

Silence again, but a different, almost apologetic one. Sylvain might even have dared to call it meek, once upon a time.

The hulking figure in front of him, however, did not seem capable of being labeled as “meek” in any context. But the skin, the bones, the muscles, the heart were still Dimitri. Shed, grown, hardened, but _Dimitri_. The same body. The same man.

“Okay, forget what I just said,” Sylvain tried again. “Because you _haven’t_ changed, have you? Not where it really matters.”

Dimitri’s cackle took them both by surprise. The edges of manic laughter still curled around Dimitri’s words when he said, “And where does it matter, Sylvain? Enlighten me. If I haven’t changed, it is because I am a monster and have always been such. If I have changed, it is because I have finally revealed myself for who I truly am.”

Ah.

There it was.

 _Annoying_.

Finally, Sylvain felt himself getting annoyed. Irritated more than concerned, more than angered, or even disturbed.

Dimitri was _good_. Dimitri had all the people in the world supporting him: his father, his stepmother, a whole host of servants and citizens, Rodrigue, Glenn, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain. For anything from scraped knees to proper behavior, Dimitri had someone to learn from. And still, for all his scrapes and behavior, Dimitri never took it for granted. He always tried to be better, never threw his entire sense of self-worth or independence on any one of these people. Should any of them vanish, Dimitri could still stand on his own two feet.

And vanish they did. Many of them. Most of them. Yet still, he’d persevered, still had Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain, still could rely on them, even as he found new friends to help him through it. Who _still_ stood by his side, almost as stubbornly as his three oldest friends.

“You weren’t a monster when Ingrid’s pony threw a shoe and you let her ride behind her,” Sylvain pointed out. “Remember? When you were six?”

Silence.

“You weren’t a monster when—” Sylvain swallowed and forced himself to continue, “you distracted that widow at the ball, remember? When I was sixteen, and you asked me to dance.”

 _And she hadn’t laid a finger on me. Or on you_.

 _Just those eyes. Power-hungry. Lustful_. _Raking our bodies like—_

Silence again.

“You weren’t a monster when Felix and Gl—”

 _Shit_ , Sylvain thought, but he’d cut himself off too late. Dimitri whirled on him, and Sylvain couldn’t repress the shudder that rippled through his spine. “Go on, Sylvain,” Dimitri taunted him. He leaned heavily on his lance like its deadliness was the only thing keeping him upright. The sharp point rested against his cheek, just under the stark blackness of his eyepatch. Sylvain hadn’t thought he could ever hate a smile more than the one he saw every day in the mirror. “Will you not continue this trip down memory lane? Or was that memory too monstrous after all?”

Sylvain swallowed around his matching, frozen smile. "Nah," he said. "I figure you get the picture."

Dimitri's eyes narrowed. "You're weak. Just like the others." He turned around again, and Sylvain struggled not to let his relieved exhale come too loud. "Leave."

Ingrid had left. Felix had left. Sylvain would not.

"Is that an order, Your _Majesty_?"

"Don't call me that."

Slowly, slowly, heat returned to Sylvain's hands. His blood. Too hot. Sylvain _hated_ the heat. "Well, it's not like you're anything else, is it? You're the King. _Our_ King."

"I did not ask to be." Dimitri spat, more snarl than sentence.

Boiling hot now.

Sylvain's blood _boiled_.

"You think any of us asked for this? You think we wanted this?"

"I don't care what you _think_ or _want_."

Ordinarily, Sylvain would have agreed with such a sentiment. He still did, in a way. No one ever had cared what he _thought_ or _wanted_. "No one ever cares what we _think_ or _want_ ," he said, he smiled, he kept control, "but we all gotta do what we _need_. It's a selfish world, Your Majesty. Might as well give it what it wants."

Tension began to stiffen Dimitri's shoulders. Even from here, even from under Dimitri's thick cloak, Sylvain could tell. And he refused to shut up.

"You think _I_ asked for any of this? You think I want to...to put my body on the line for—"

For his family.

For his country.

For his _body_ , the bloodstained Crest buried under its skin.

"You think I want to put my body on the line for a King who doesn't care if I live or die?"

Dimitri whirled on him again, stalked forward one, two steps, and paused on the third. Sylvain's breath came hard and heavy. His scorching-hot hands shook under their useless gloves. Dimitri's single eye glared like sunset over a smoking funeral pyre. " _I am not your King_."

"No," Sylvain snapped back. "You're my friend. I'll put my body on the line for my _friend_."

Silence. More silence, _endless_ silence, and Sylvain despised hearing it.

Why could he never say anything right?

What had made him think he could succeed where Ingrid had failed? What had made him think his charm could balance Felix's ire?

What had made Sylvain think he could still be a human shield for a frightened boy unaware of his own power, who'd grown into a frightened man capable of destroying all that he touched, one who pretended he reveled in such destruction?

The furious agony etched into every exhausted shadow and line of Dimitri's face was the only expression Sylvain had seen on him in months.

"All corpses once were bodies," Dimitri finally said. His grip on the lance tightened hard enough Sylvain could see his fingers tremble. "Do what you will with yours. Fall into an early grave, climb into someone's bed, fight for something we both know you don't believe in. I don't care. Whatever you think of me now, know that your _friend_ might as well think nothing of _you_ , for he no longer exists."

And just like that, it clicked.

The sole thing Sylvain's body could do no one else’s could—not Felix’s, not Ingrid’s, not Dimitri’s.

The one thing it always _had_ done. The body to be admired, the body to be hated, the body to be desired, to be hurt, to be fucked, to be fought, the one that did the hurting, the fucking, the fighting, the distraction, the comfort, the thing that kept laughing at the horrors in the world so that three smaller kids would never understand what was so unfunny and instead would laugh alongside it.

“Well,” Sylvain laughed now, laughed at the kid in front of him who the world’s horrors hadn’t managed to break quite yet, “I already said my body’s yours, right? Do with it what _you_ will.”

Dimitri’s trembling fingers froze. His expression did, too. “What.”

Sylvain couldn’t stop _laughing_.

“Dimitri, I’m gonna fight for you tomorrow. Not for my country, my Kingdom…you. Whether you like it or not.”

“Do _not_ —”

“Whether you like it or not,” Sylvain said louder, interrupting, interrupting the _King_. He spread his arms wide, gesturing to himself, like Dimitri was looking anywhere else. “This body’s gonna fight and maybe die for you, and you can’t stop it. And I’m not the only one, you know? There are soldiers you’ve never even _looked at_ who are going to march and fight and die for their King tomorrow, sure, but there are a few of us _bodies_ who are doing it for _you_. You don’t get a say in that. Not anymore.”

His voice—when had it gotten so loud?—echoed in the dust.

“But that’s tomorrow, Your Majesty,” Sylvain said, forcing the noise and fear from the words. “Right now? Tonight? Here’s a body you know actually cares, one who’ll do what you say in a way those…those ghosts of yours never could.” He moved closer, boots muffled on the stones, and Dimitri noticeably didn’t step away. “You have me. You have choices. Okay?”

This close, Sylvain could see Dimitri swallow. The shallow, quick intakes of breath between his parted lips. The white of his eye against the shadow beneath. The fearful desire in his huge, dilated, black pupil.

Dimitri said, “No,” and Sylvain recoiled like Areadhbar had stabbed his own eye.

“ _What_?”

He couldn’t do anything.

He couldn’t do _anything_ right.

Dimitri wouldn’t look at him, like the very sight of Sylvain repulsed him. For real this time. Forever. Silent as judgment.

Sylvain should leave. He should follow in Felix and Ingrid’s footsteps, their tear-streaked path down these dusty halls and cracked stones back to the warm glow of the monastery. They had tried, they had failed, and tomorrow, maybe it wouldn’t matter that the last remnants of childhood had been gouged out for good.

But Sylvain had always been _different_. Didn’t Dimitri know this? Didn’t Dimitri care?

No. He didn’t.

“Your best intentions are futile,” Dimitri’s roughened, halting voice halted Sylvain, too. “You offer me your… _body_ because you believe you love something like me. But I am incapable of love. Only destruction.”

Something scared, lonely, and furious snapped in Sylvain’s heart.

“Then destroy me!” Sylvain shouted like a threat. Dimitri flinched like neither of them knew anything of power or strength. “Destroy me, Dimitri, if you think you even _can_. Come on. Try me. Try it!”

Dimitri said nothing and Sylvain almost hated him for it. Dimitri, silent, judging, even _now_ , even with his foolhardy insistences of his own monstrousness and callousness, even _now_ Dimitri hadn’t grown up from being that uncomfortable, prudish boy from the past.

Dimitri really hadn’t changed.

That was why, Sylvain remembered, he was _doing_ this.

“Or maybe you’re not as much of a beast as you say you are,” Sylvain said, softer, but no less of a taunt. “Maybe you can cut my heart open, but you can’t break it. You’re nothing compared to me. It’s almost funny, you know? An angry little boy like you can’t finish what any of my _heartbroken_ lovers could start. No one could—no girl, no man, no _King_ —”

Dimitri was upon him then, so quickly Sylvain almost toppled. He towered over him in a way his height shouldn’t have allowed. The sharp fingertips of Dimitri’s gauntlets dug into Areadbhar’s shaft, and all Sylvain’s startled brain could think was _hope he doesn’t treat any other shafts that way, or I really_ have _fucked up_.

“You will hate me when I am through with you.”

And oh, but didn’t _that_ make Sylvain shiver with the best type of heat, even as he sneered at the whispered declaration. “Try me,” Sylvain said again, like Dimitri’s burning blue eye staring dark fire inches above him wasn’t making his heart race with something far more dangerous than fear.

Sylvain couldn’t possibly hate Dimitri for whatever he claimed he would do to him. Sylvain hated _himself_ enough to let it happen, _want_ it to happen.

And Sylvain loved Dimitri too much to prevent it.

Dimitri’s wild eye flitted from spot to spot on Sylvain’s face, neck, chest, face. Changed from a heated glare to a wide-eyed stare, throat bobbing in a way Sylvain might have described as _nervous_ but now just seemed sad.

“Dimitri,” Sylvain said, gently, and Dimitri didn’t let the rest of a half-formed apology leave Sylvain’s mouth.

Less of a kiss, more of a fight: Dimitri’s lips were hard and aggressive on his, too much teeth and not enough tenderness. But still Sylvain _moaned_ , deep in his throat, when Dimitri grabbed the back of his head and pushed him closer, the tips of his gauntlets pricking against Sylvain’s scalp. On instinct, Sylvain pushed back, chasing Dimitri’s unpracticed assault with teasing swipes of his tongue before he remembered he did not want to lead the way.

Sylvain wanted to be used.

If Dimitri felt the way Sylvain relaxed under his touch, yielded to his strength, he didn’t show his appreciation. No, he shoved both hands into Sylvain’s hair now, bringing him closer, too close, touch-starved and frantic. His mouth missed Sylvain’s twice and made up for it by nipping at the corner of Sylvain’s gasping lips. His tongue plunged inside, running along the tips of Sylvain’s teeth, like he was equal parts exploring and claiming every inch of Sylvain’s mouth for his own.

Sylvain let him, and he loved it.

He clung to Dimitri’s back, and even though Dimitri was so heavily armored and covered by that tattered old cape that he probably didn’t even feel Sylvain’s touch, still he rubbed soothing circles against where he imagined he could find the nubs of Dimitri’s spine. He yelped into Dimitri’s mouth when sharp metal yanked at his hair, then moaned when Dimitri did it again.

Dimitri pulled back for air, red-faced and panting, his eye lust-fogged and stormy blue. “You really would let me do anything to you,” he said almost to himself, but it didn’t sound like mockery.

“Yep,” Sylvain said, the single syllable masking how out of breath he was, too. Dimitri looked him over then, long and hard. From the tips of his haphazard red curls to the cuirass covering his broad shoulders and scarred chest to the teal belt slung low on his greaves Sylvain had never consciously intended to be seductive but got no measure of _comments_ on.

Dimitri’s gaze halted there, and Sylvain decided it was worth it.

“Come on, then,” he said, getting his breath back while Dimitri’s gaze wandered. He hooked his thumbs in the belt that had so caught Dimitri’s interest. “You gonna do anything else?”

For a moment, Dimitri hesitated. But when he lunged for Sylvain’s belt only a heartbeat later, it was with such ferocious urgency Sylvain wondered if maybe he’d imagined the flicker of concern in Dimitri’s eye.

“Whoa, Your Highness,” Sylvain laughed while Dimitri fumbled, brushing the leather covering his cock too lightly for Sylvain to feel it. Not that it mattered; he bit back a gasp anyway. Dimitri bared his teeth at him and Sylvain failed to silence the next one.

“Have you had a change of heart after all?”

“Goddess, not at _all_ ,” Sylvain said, knocking Dimitri’s clumsy fingers aside. “Just hurrying things along for you.” He unbuckled his belt with practiced grace and speed, grinning when he realized Dimitri was openly staring while he moved onto his greaves. “Eager, Your Highness?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Gotcha, I got it. Here—” Pushing the greaves off his legs with a heavy metallic _clank_ , Sylvain reached for Dimitri’s next. He sighed when Dimitri recoiled, like a frightened animal. “C’mon, Dimitri,” Sylvain murmured, wiggling his fingers. “C’mon, let me take care of you.”

 _Stupid_. Foolishly spoken words. That wasn’t what this was about; this was about Dimitri’s decisions, not his, not _them_. Sylvain held up his hands immediately, ready to back off, ready to laugh it off, present himself better. But Dimitri gave him a single jerky nod and waited.

“Do it,” he barked when Sylvain still didn’t move, a strange nervous undercurrent to the command.

“Never’ll disappoint my liege,” Sylvain said, but he forgot to wink or smile and the words fell too heavy in the air. He grabbed Dimitri’s hips, pulled him close, and began working on his greaves, too. Heavier than his own cavalry gear, but war demands consistency and uniformity. Before long, Dimitri stood bare from the waist down, too. And as much as Sylvain wanted to look, to feel the heat of him and not just the heat within his own gut and hips and cock and heart…

 _What was he_ doing?

“Touch me,” Dimitri said, and again, it lacked the cadence of an order. But Sylvain obeyed anyway. He licked a slow, too-seductive stripe on his gloveless palm, grinning behind his splayed fingers, then reached down to fist the base of Dimitri’s thick cock.

The effect was _instantaneous_.

Dimitri moaned, low and warm and _human_ , and Sylvain was lost. One of Dimitri’s gauntleted hands slammed onto Sylvain’s shoulder. The impact of metal armor on metal armor sent horrible jitters through his spine, but he ignored the discomfort and stroked his friend harder, faster. A touch too dry, he knew, but Dimitri didn’t seem to care. He just moaned, rutted against Sylvain’s palm, mouth hanging open around some unvoiced word.

“Come—come here,” Dimitri said through gritted teeth.

Sylvain complied. “You want my mouth?” he asked softly. Dimitri nodded, eye squeezed shut, and Sylvain prepared to drop to his knees—

Dimitri kissed him again.

A real kiss. Not the frenzied, starved assault on his lips Sylvain had so craved only minutes before. Lips searing lips, curious tongue prodding gently at his teeth. Sylvain gasped, and Dimitri slipped his tongue inside, curling around the tip of his own almost shyly. Inexperienced, uncertain. Painfully obvious Dimitri had never kissed anyone like this before.

Sylvain wasn’t sure if he’d been kissed this way, either.

His hand stilled below Dimitri’s waist, but it didn’t seem to matter. Dimitri slid one gauntleted hand into Sylvain’s hair and pulled him closer into his kiss, thrusting into his loose grip in the same movement. Their cocks brushed each other, a slow, slick drag of hot, hard skin against skin. Sylvain sucked in a shuddering gasp, bringing Dimitri impossibly deeper into his mouth, his kiss, his arms, and grinded back to match Dimitri’s clumsy rhythm.

He couldn’t breathe; Dimitri barely pulled away long enough to let him. He tangled his fingers in Sylvain’s hopelessly-mussed red strands, metal catching on his scalp, every time Sylvain’s nails scraped the fine blond wisps under his long hair. But want for air meant nothing for want of _this_ : this, Dimitri, close in body and cock and lust and heart as he’d never been, as Sylvain had never hoped. He chased after Dimitri’s lips each time a single gasp of breath parted them. He chased his own release, buzzing fire in his gut so very distant but coming closer, sooner, with each frantic rut of Dimitri’s hips into his.

Distant. Close. Attainable.

They broke apart at last.

 _Fuck, I want you_ , Sylvain didn’t say.

“I want you,” Dimitri said. The gentle whisper of his eyelashes fluttered against Sylvain’s cheek. The rough leather of his eyepatch cut into the other side. Sylvain squeezed both his eyes shut and willed himself still, to freeze the fiery lust, not love, roaring its fury in his mind.

“No, you don’t,” he laughed.

“I do. I don’t… deserve to, but I—”

“No,” Sylvain said, “you don’t deserve it.”

When he backed away, yanking up his trousers and tucking himself back in, Dimitri let him. The droop of his shoulders and clench of his jaw ruined the last shreds of disdain Sylvain hadn’t even realized he was still gripping.

“Dimitri…”

He stepped closer, pretending he didn’t hear the hitch of Dimitri’s breath, and helped his King tidy up too, look a little more dignified, a little less ravished. Selfish, selfish, selfish. He just wanted to touch, to…

“You deserve a lot better than this. Better than a pity fuck in a church.”

Sylvain aimed his broken smile at the crumbling altar behind Dimitri’s shoulder, but his stupid gaze still caught Dimitri’s forlorn expression. So different from how it had been when Sylvain had first sauntered in here thinking he knew best.

So much the same sad Dimitri from how it had been long, long before.

Dimitri snorted, brushing his hair over his eyepatch and behind his ear in what was clearly a habit. “We are at war, Sylvain.”

Sylvain nodded. “Yeah. We are.”

Untidy strands of hair escaped Dimitri’s self-conscious gesture, hanging over his eyepatch once more. Sylvain’s fingers twitched; he backed away even more.

Once he was at a reasonably safe distance, he adjusted his greaves again and sighed, staring at the shattered stained glass above them like it held all the answers in the world.

“I won’t let you die tomorrow.”

Sylvain ignored him. An easy task: Dimitri’s quiet voice didn’t even echo in this sprawling, empty space. Moonlight trickled through the gaps in the glass. Fascinating. Beautiful. Poetic.

“I do care if you live. I do… care.”

What was he still doing here? Standing on countless shards of broken glass, listening to a confused man’s desperate appeals to a sense of decency Sylvain couldn’t even pretend he still possessed?

“You deserve better than this, too.”

Sylvain’s heart shattered; all the cracked stained glass littering these cold stones couldn’t hope to compare.

Even after all this, Dimitri still could say the cruelest things.

“Will you let me fight for you tomorrow?” Sylvain asked the moonlight.

“Don’t die for me.”

Sylvain’s laugh creaked in his chest. “Guess I’ll have to live for you, instead. You’re royalty through and through, Your M—”

“Sylvain, _please_.” The clank of metal warned him just in time. Sylvain stumbled away from Dimitri’s outstretched hand, nearly tripping over his own clumsily-fixed greaves. Dimitri’s arm flailed, like he could catch him, support him, and Sylvain skittered back more.

“Just don’t… die,” Sylvain mumbled. “Don’t let yourself get killed, either. Don’t do that to us. We need you.”

Dimitri’s hand slowly, slowly retreated to the safety of his filthy cloak. Without Areadbhar, lying impotent on the tiles, his other gauntlet hanging by his side seemed tiny and useless. That unseeing glint returned to his eye, fogging the blue. Was it just the one? Or did the eyepatch hide another blank stare, forever gazing into nothingness?

Sylvain swallowed. “Dimitri.”

The glint flickered.

“Don’t do that to me either, okay? Don’t die on me. Promise me.”

The glint, the fog cleared. And now Dimitri just looked as tired as Sylvain felt.

“Oaths and promises often mean nothing when they’re put to the test,” he said, and for some reason Sylvain chuckled instead of following the echoes out the door.

“Yeah. I know that pretty well.”

Against his better judgement, he stepped over the glass and rubble and clapped Dimitri on the fuzzy, armored shoulder. Dimitri flinched, eye widening, but couldn’t hide how he leaned into Sylvain’s touch, and Sylvain couldn’t pretend not to let him.

“Let’s try our best anyway, ‘kay? Not everything’s as easy to destroy as you think.”

Maybe it was his lopsided grin. Maybe it was the gentleness of his tone.

Maybe it was him.

Whatever Dimitri saw in Sylvain in that moment, it was enough to make him wrap Sylvain into the tightest, fiercest hug of Sylvain’s life. Like its suffocating strength could squeeze the pain of five, ten, twelve, twenty years out of both their bodies and drip, spent, onto the dust and ashes of this stupid cathedral.

Sylvain threw his arms around Dimitri’s back and hugged back.

“I need you.”

A single, dry sob.

“Thank you.”

Sylvain wouldn’t leave. Not until Dimitri made him.


End file.
